


The Young Interview

by Hackney123



Series: Washington Live [5]
Category: The West Wing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:02:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22770694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hackney123/pseuds/Hackney123
Summary: After a month of being mauled and humiliated by female guests on his show Christian Salviant has decided it is time to get payback. He has invited on Charlie Young with the intention of ridiculing him. Well that was the idea.
Series: Washington Live [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1527422
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	The Young Interview

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I would remind everybody that Christian Salviant and the show Washington Live are a figment of my imagination and no resemblance to any real person or show is intended.
> 
> 2\. I am not sure which offences are prosecuted by the US Attorney so for the purpose of this story we will assume that what is said about racial breakdown is true. I have not checked.

Christian Salviant bounded onto the stage looking forward to the show as he had prepared a set of questions to trip up his guest. Looking into the camera he said.  
‘Good evening and welcome to the show. My guest tonight is the former US Attorney for Maryland and DC and Senatorial candidate Charles Young. Please give him a warm welcome.’

Charlie came onto the stage with a wide smile which was as genuine as a three dollar bill. He considered Christian Salviant a punk and a complete waste of air. But as he was running for the Senate he could do with the free publicity.

‘Charles, may I call you Charlie?’  
‘Sure, everyone else does. At least to my face.’  
‘Charlie you are running for the Senate in what will be a tight race. Some people will look at your racist prosecutorial record and wonder whether you are too soft on crime especially when it comes to crimes committed by black people.’  
‘Luckily I am running in a state where the people are intelligent enough not to listen to rumours and inuendo. I stand by my prosecutorial record. Under me as State Attorney my office has a 85% conviction rate. I admit we take twice as long to bring cases to court but when we do bring them to court as the conviction rate shows the majority result in a conviction.  
On your suggestion of racism, I am sure that the people who are concerned about the fact would note that the majority of people who are charged with offences that were prosecuted by my office were white. There is a direct correlation between the racial breakdown of people charged and convicted.’  
This was not the response that Christian wanted he was hoping for an angry denial. Hopefully the next question would do it.

‘Charlie, when you took over as US Attorney you bought your mistress over to work as your assistant. Do you think that people might have concerns over the propriety of this.’  
It was not clear what kind of response Christian was expecting but the loud belly laugh was probably not it. When Charlie had stopped laughing, he said.  
‘You clearly did not see the recording of my confirmation hearing if you had you would have noticed my wife and my assistant laughing and joking together before the hearing started. I bought Meredith over with me as if she had stayed with my old firm there would always be questions as to whether she got a promotion because of who her Uncle was. Her current post is a Senate confirmable one which she got after passing her Bar exam. If she was having an affair with me the Democrats on the committee would have voted against her and I would be dead politically.’

We will take a short break after which we will be hearing more from Charles Young. After the break Christian carried on with the interview.

‘You were a Presidential Aide under President Bartlett indeed that is how you met your wife who is President Bartlett’s youngest daughter. As I understand it Josh Lyman recommended you for that job as he did for the post of Special Counsel to the Office of the White House Chief of Staff. If it was not for that patronage you would not have got as far as you did.’  
‘How can an idiot like you get paid as much as you do. If I had not been given that first job by Josh Lyman it would probably have taken me slightly longer to get where I am. What you have to remember is that I did not apply for the job as a Presidential Aide. My details were passed on to Josh Lyman after I applied for a job as a messenger.’

Charlie waited to see if Christian would fall into the trap and make an assumption about how he got the job of a Presidential Aide. He did.

‘So, you were given the job of Presidential Aide although you had not applied for it and were not qualified for it.’  
‘No, I got it because I was overqualified for the job I was applying for and showed I had the qualifications for the job. The reason why I was applying for the messenger job is so I could look after my younger sister following the death of my mother who was shot on duty.’

This was not going well with as he saw it nothing to lose Christian went for his last line of attack.

‘In your time as a Presidential Aide you helped to cover up President Bartlet’s MS from the public so that he could win the election. When the story came out, had President Bartlet not agreed to accept a censure, you would have been given immunity from prosecution in order to testify.’  
‘My campaign manager is going to love you. If I may correct a couple of things. Firstly, as I joined the President’s staff after he was elected, I could not have been party to a cover up to help him win the election. Secondly, while I had been offered an immunity deal and had been told by Leo McGarry among others to accept it as I told Mr McGarry I was not going to take it. Although had the matter gone further the legal costs could have bankrupted me, I was not going to save myself at the expense of people who trusted me.’

Christian had no way of challenging what had just been said partly because it was true and also because he had nothing to contradict it with. So, he moved on to his final question.  
‘Charlie in your campaign for a Senate seat you have made much about rehabilitation of criminals. Surely you would agree we need longer tougher sentences.’  
‘At present because we do not have the prison space to keep prisoners in jail for the length of their sentences. Most prisoners are released early. What we need to do is to tackle those prisoners who keep on reoffending by showing them alternatives to offending. Except those who cheat on their taxes they should do the full sentence imposed.’  
‘Thank you that is all we have time for this week.’


End file.
